http://www.ck12.org Chapter 2. Colonial America
2.4 The Puritans
New England was first settled by Puritans, people from England who believed that the Church of England had
become corrupt. Their name comes from their intention topurifythe Church. The first group of settlers, who came
on the Mayflower and founded the Plymouth colony, were calledseparatists. They wanted to leave the Church
entirely. A decade later, a second group of Puritans founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony, but they were less
radical. Instead of separating from the Church, they wanted to remain members of the church and purify it from
within. The following documents are taken from this second group of settlers. As you read, think about how their
beliefs might have influence their actions in New England and helped shape the new colony.
City upon a Hill – John Winthrop
Source: John Winthrop (1588–1649), lawyer and leader of the 1630 migration of English Puritans to Massachusetts
Bay Colony, delivered this famous sermon aboard the Arbella to settlers traveling to New England.
Now the only way to avoid this shipwreck, and to provide for our posterity, is to follow the counsel of Micah, to do
justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God. For this end, we must be knit together, in this work, as one man.
We must entertain each other in brotherly affection. We must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities, for
the supply of others’ necessities. We must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience
and liberality. We must delight in each other; make others’ conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together,
labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, as members of
the same body. So shall we keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.
The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken,
and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world.
We shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God, and all professors for God’s sake. We shall
shame the faces of many of God’s worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us till we
be consumed out of the good land whither we are going. And to shut this discourse with that exhortation of Moses,
that faithful servant of the Lord, in his last farewell to Israel, Deut. 30. “Beloved, there is now set before us life
and death, good and evil,” in that we are commanded this day to love the Lord our God, and to love one another, to
walk in his ways and to keep his Commandments and his ordinance and his laws, and the articles of our Covenant
with Him, that we may live and be multiplied, and that the Lord our God may bless us in the land whither we go to
possess it.
But if our hearts shall turn away, so that we will not obey, but shall be seduced, and worship other Gods, our pleasure
and profits, and serve them; it is propounded unto us this day, we shall surely perish out of the good land whither
we pass over this vast sea to possess it. Therefore let us choose life, that we and our seed may live, by obeying His
voice and cleaving to Him, for He is our life and our prosperity.
The Lord will be our God, and delight to dwell among us, as His own people, and will command a blessing upon
us in all our ways, so that we shall see much more of His wisdom, power, goodness and truth, than formerly we
have been acquainted with. We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist
a thousand of our enemies; when He shall make us a praise and glory that men shall say of succeeding plantations,
“may the Lord make it like that of New England.”For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill.
Questions
1.Sourcing:Who kind of person was John Winthrop? Who was he speaking to in this sermon? What do you